This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 13, 1997.

We begin our scripture reading this morning in 1 Samuel 2, and we are beginning at verse 18. This is the word of God. But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child girded with a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife and said, The Lord give thee seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the Lord, and they went unto their own home. and the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bare three sons and two daughters, and the child Samuel grew before the Lord.” Then, turning over to Matthew’s Gospel, the nineteenth chapter, we begin reading in Matthew 19 at verse 16, And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. and come and follow me.’ But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of an eagle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake shall receive an honored full, and shall inherit everlasting life. that many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.

Let’s pray together. Grant us your peace, O God, even as we consider your word and its sufficiency, as we think upon its effectiveness in our lives, in the life of this church, in the life of your church around the world, and surely, O God, as you have placed it in the hearts of your servants, and you have caused them to speak in keeping with that word, declaring your gospel in truth. Even, Father, as by that word sinners are beckoned, as those who are coming out of darkness into your marvelous light. Lord, prosper your word today. May sinners be converted, may saints be chastened and corrected, may they also be encouraged in the word of righteousness. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

She had disappeared, but now she is back. I am speaking about Hannah. She had disappeared from our story in 1 Samuel. She had been removed most dramatically, but now she is back. The storyteller by the Holy Spirit that made so much of her in the opening portion of this book in the Bible. from the beginning of this book through chapter 2, verse 10. You would very likely conclude that the story was actually all about Hannah. She is the main figure. She has set a stage, it seems.

But then comes chapter 2, verse 11, and suddenly as this opening section of 1 Samuel closes, Hannah is gone, and instead her husband surprisingly appears in prominent position, and is spoken of as if he were the focus. Not one word being offered about Hannah. The text reads, Then Elkanah went to his house at Ramah. So Hannah had disappeared. But now she’s back. That is, before the story of Samuel is allowed to progress, Hannah reappears. She reappears prominently in verses 18 through 21. And her reappearance is especially striking against the background of her former disappearance.

It’s almost as if, in terms of the force of the matter, it’s almost as if she had died, and that her reappearance was something of a resurrection. Or even more overpowering, if it’s possible to trump the resurrection, even more overpowering It is as if her reappearance were a recovery out of the void, out of nothingness itself. that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more. So prays David in Psalm 39.

But Hannah disappears as one who has gone hence. and is no more, only now to reappear as if out of the void, as if out of the world of no more. Her existence itself gone. But there is something you must understand about this void. There is something you must understand about Hannah’s disappearance into this world of no more.

You see, Hannah chooses them. You are not ready to hear this. Because you love yourselves too much. And you hold on to your world and your life. Everything else is too important to you. Not so with him. This woman is going to speak to you today. I will say it again for you.

There is something of the greatest importance that you must understand about this void, something you must understand about Hannah’s disappearance into this world of no more, of non-existence. She chooses them. And by so doing, she reveals the profound depths of her soul and the greatness of her faith. Now please understand me by calling attention to Hannah’s choice here and her faith. I do not want you to forget the essential focus of her life and the messages that we have preached on her to this point. You must not miss this truth, therefore. Hannah is carried along, yes, above her choice, above her faith, she is carried along by the irresistible sweep of God’s sovereign, inscrutable, providential dealing.

She is but clay, the Lord is the potter. He has closed her womb, the text states as much. Chapter 1, verse 5, and it is the Lord who opened that womb. Even her choice, even her faith, in the end, are gifts from God, and He is the sovereign one in dispensing both.

And even more than that, God has assigned to this woman an identity, one which joins her to those women before her, to Sarah and to Rachel. In an identity beyond these women’s comprehension, even beyond their own cooperation. such identity-speaking volumes, not about them personally, but about the entirety of the people of God. By the Lord’s design, in keeping with his sovereign purpose, these barren women serve the story of salvation. For we see in them the people of God as a whole, as if the people of God were in them. They being corporate personalities.

In them, then, we see the people of God as those people move in history from fruitlessness and futility, from even the impossibility of bearing fruit and their inability to deliver themselves from their futility, into the glorious provision of God. In the births of Isaac, Joseph, and Samuel, You witness the movement, yes, the movement in the entirety of the history of salvation, so it is not just the people of God who are in the women, the whole of the history of redemption is in the women. You witness in them the movement from the old to the new. You can see in them the movement from the old covenant to the new covenant, from the old testament to the new testament. the patterns coming to expression, those that will peak in the great salvation realized in Jesus Christ. I want you to start looking at the people in the Bible like this. It will be a great antidote to your inherent selfishness.

Again then, even as you would consider Hannah’s personal choice and her personal faith, don’t forget this point. Hannah herself is carried along by the irresistible sweep of God’s superintending, sovereign, providential dealings, and this in the interests of his eternal, predestinated purpose in saving his elect through his Son. And we can say that Hannah even disappears that she is even surrendered to the void, to that world of no more, of non-existence, by the predetermined counsel and foreordination of God. But it is this same predetermined counsel, this same foreordination of God that brings her back in the course of this story. in which she has been allowed by the sovereign hand of the Spirit to disappear. And this God also does in the interests of salvation history. But notice now how subtly and yet how wonderfully Hannah is reintroduced for you.

It’s incremental through verses 18 to the conclusion there in 21. Verse 18 doesn’t mention her as such. It tells us about Samuel, her son, ministering before the Lord while wearing the linen ephod. We have seen how these words speak volumes about Samuel’s position and what is intended for him. Yet nothing, as yet, is said about Hannah.

The verse 19 finds Hannah, not named yet, but identified as Samuel’s mother performing service to her son with the yearly sacrifice. But you will remember in this regard the force of this verse. the force of verse 19 that moves us to think that the yearly sacrifice was peculiarly Hannah’s, and that in a way that simply could not have been the case in ancient Israel. For it was the males who were responsible for the yearly sacrifices, you will remember. Here she brings Samuel a robe yearly, when she would come up to offer the yearly sacrifice.

And in verse 20, Eli then blesses Elkanah, but now she is especially in Jew. And at the end of that verse, and in contrast to the beginning portion of verse 11, where Elkanah alone is mentioned, Hannah and Elkanah are mentioned in their return to Ramah, their home city. Hannah’s recovery during the course of these three verses is near complete, but verse 21 finishes it off. Here, instead of Elphanna alone mentioned, followed by a statement about Samuel, as was the case in verse 11, we now have Hannah, she herself, named, alone mentioned, followed by a statement about Samuel.

She is back in full view, and how appropriate For if it is true, as I’ve said, that Hannah in her move from barrenness to childbearing is one in whom we must see the history of the people of God over which the poor ordination of God presides, then the same is true for her move into and out of the nothingness. The same is true as she disappears only to reappear with such prominence in this story. Hannah by the end of verse 21 with her three additional sons and her two daughters is presented as a picture of the people of God in the superlative blessedness of the kingdom. in her we witness the people of God not simply in their ultimate fruitfulness in Christ despite their former fruitlessness, but in their ultimate recovery through Christ from oblivion, their reconstitution by Christ out of the void, their resurrection with Christ from the dead. There is another Old Testament figure in whom we witness the same pattern.

I have in mind Job. You know his story, how God allows Satan to destroy his livelihood, remove his children in death, and afflict his body until Job curses the day of his birth and wishes that he had never been. that in his extremity, Job is confronted by God, and through this revelation, Job beholds his own wretchedness as never before. The conclusion of Job’s story finds him, we are told, restored to his fortunes with seven other sons and three other daughters. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. Chapter 42 in Job, verse 12. But you know, of course, do you not, that this story about Job is not about the possibilities that are out there for you and for me?

That if you or I lose our jobs, we’ll always get a better one, won’t we? And if I were to lose my children before this day were out, other children would be born to me, others would be given to me to compensate for the loss. And if I were to lose my health, greater health and long life await me as an assured guarantee because God likes me. That is how the majority of the Church reads Job, tragically and sadly, and even many within the Reformed faith.

Job is no more about my personal posterity than is Hannah. Neither of these figures is about personal tragedy and the promise of compensation in times in this world over and above their loss. Both of them, both of these figures are about the history of the whole of the people of God, the history of redemption. Job’s story is the history of true Israel as that Israel is left utterly destitute, there to be confronted with her utter wretchedness until God reveals himself in Jesus Christ and God’s elect are raised up to enjoy the eternal prosperity of the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Job is about.

Hannah’s story is the history of true Israel. as that Israel is given the child of salvation, when that Israel has no ability whatsoever to generate that child, or is even worthy of that child. But also as that Israel is given over to total disillusion. Given over to total disillusion. given over to the world of no more, given over to death, swallowed up as it were in the grave, lost in that world of nonexistence, only to be brought back to be resurrected to the sublime glory of heaven in Christ. That’s what Hannah is about.

Jesus confronts his disciples, lest you think I’m spinning fables here and making this up, confronts his own disciples with these very truths in the aftermath of his encounter with the rich young ruler after challenging this man to leave all for his sake and for the sake of treasure in heaven. Jesus must deal with Peter who boasts of having left everything to follow Jesus.

Peter thinks that his own present privation, his own present loss of earthly blessing, is only temporary. Once we reach Jerusalem, and that conclusively, all that I have sacrificed will be infinitely repaid to me, and blessings untold will be keeped upon me for my enjoyment in this world. Jesus’ answer is cryptic to him, and through him, ironical to the disciples. The personal prosperity he holds out to Peter has nothing to do with a large Jewish estate, and a burgeoning apple and happy family living in the countryside.

It has to do with the church and the multiplication of fellowship in it. That’s what Jesus is ultimately speaking about to Peter when he mentions brothers and sisters, mother and father, wife and children. That’s what he’s talking about. You can think of just how this registers upon a Jewish mind. For after all, Family is God. And so is the land, of course. But you knew that, right?

The real issue is eternal life, as Jesus makes clear at the end of his statement to Peter and the rest of the disciples. And that eternal life is now that which conditions all the blessings that are to be aspired, appropriated, and appreciated. And it’s appropriate that we should be speaking at this moment about disciples.

For this brings us back to Hannah. and the remark that I made early on in this message when I said that Hannah chooses the void, emptiness, nothingness, her own disappearance. Here you are touching the profound religious issue in Hannah’s experience You see, in the end, it will not simply be that the disciples or Job or Hannah become the occasion to observe, to be sure, in the most remarkable way, the irresistible sweep of God’s sovereign, inscrutable oversight of the history of salvation. No, these figures, and yes, Hannah herself most portedly, become the occasion to observe the exercise of genuine faith. How far will your faith go? Will you give yourself over to nothingness out of your confidence that God will bring you back?

Why I am nothing. Who am I? I’m but a worm. I’m less than a worm. I choose nothingness. I embrace it. I am the true nihilist. did she was a fake. So here she is, the occasion to observe the exercise of genuine faith of the most profoundest sort, to observe the religious self-conscious choice which she makes, over into nothingness, to lose herself, even to lose herself in an identification assigned her from God, and that her joy, to be lost in the history of salvation and in the identity that swallows her up in the people of God, and that in the most intimate fashion. To choose that history as her very own, to give up herself in its interests. Hannah’s choice and faith are reflected in the course of the telling of her tale, in her untroubled serenity, recorded for you in the 18th verse of that first chapter, after her first interview with Eli. She went away, and she ate, and her face was no longer sad. She didn’t even have yet had the child! Nor did it matter! This woman was free!

You see it again underscored for you when she gives the child away. And then you see it in her prayer in verses 1-10 at the beginning of chapter 2, and we’ve been over that, but you know by now that this is not a reflection upon her personal circumstance. for her personal circumstance and herself have been forgotten in the interests of God’s comprehensive kingdom. Hannah’s disappearance then in chapter 2, verse 11, she’s gone from the test, is consistent, and I might add, in order to underscore the point for you, It is completely and utterly unproblematic to her.

Wait a minute! I’m supposed to be in here! And to this one who in her faith makes herself last as if nothing, who gives up her life, who surrenders herself to loss, who disappears as if into the void, as if into the land of forgetfulness, the land of no more, as if into death itself, she, breathing in of that spirit from whom we all are to receive, becomes first, gains all, reappears out of the void, rises to life again, before the Lord’s anointed steps out upon the earth, the anointed one that she mentions in the last verse of her song, chapter 2, verse 10, before that one steps out upon the earth, the religious spirit to receive him and serve him is discerned in this woman. she will give up everything for him she already has. But now you know that the Lord’s anointed has stepped out upon the earth and subsequently been seated in his glory above. And may each one of you have that spirit which we have observed in Hannah, the spirit of genuine faith, receiving him and serving him, that spirit which by faith gives up one’s life, that life might be gained forever. I think you’re listening. I hope you are. Because you have just touched the profound depths, not only of Hannah’s soul, but of the soul of God.

O Father, with our eyes open, we choose that statement concerning ourselves that we are nothing, that we are given over to nothingness. Father, in faith, we so surrender ourselves in the confidence that you are able to reconstitute us. and that you are able to raise us from the dead. What confidence is ours, O God, that that which you have made plain in Christ, who on the cross surrenders himself utterly and completely in his trust of his Father. Father, we ask that you might then grant us mercy as your children, that understanding these things we would not hold on to the dear life in this world, but rather hold on to you, to your Son, to the Kingdom, and let everything else go.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.